Richard Jung Receives Prestigious Boren Scholarship to Study Abroad in Japan

(Golden, CO, April 26, 2024) Richard Jung has been awarded a Boren Scholarship to study in Japan during the 2024-2025 academic year. Richard is currently an undergraduate student in Design Engineering with a focus on Corporate Sustainability. He will study Japanese during his time in Japan.

Richard aspires to serve as a Foreign Affairs Officer in the Indo-Pacific region and to work in a government intelligence agency, and his Boren Award sets him on the path for expertise in this region. The Boren Awards invest in linguistic and cultural knowledge for aspiring federal government employees.

The David L. Boren Scholarships and Fellowships are sponsored by the National Security Education Program (NSEP), a component of the Defense Language and National Security Education Office (DLNSEO). NSEP is a federal initiative designed to build a broader and more qualified pool of U.S. citizens with foreign language and international skills. 

Boren Awards provide U.S. undergraduate and graduate students with resources and encouragement to acquire language skills and experience in countries critical to the future security and stability of the United States. In exchange for funding, Boren award recipients agree to work in the federal government for a period of at least one year. “The National Security Education Program,” according to Dr. Clare Bugary, Director of DLNSEO, “has transformed how U.S. higher education approaches the study of foreign languages and cultures of the work and provides Americans opportunities to learn, grow and serve.”

This year, the Institute of International Education (IIE), which administers the awards on behalf of NSEP, received 625 applications from undergraduate students and awarded 215 Boren Scholarships. 245 graduate students applied for the Boren Fellowships and 105 were awarded. The selected Boren Scholars and Fellows intend to study in 42 overseas locations throughout Africa, Asia, Eurasia, Latin America, and the Middle East.  They will study 33 different languages. The most popular languages include Mandarin, Arabic, Russian, Portuguese, Korean, Swahili, Turkish, Japanese, and Indonesian.

 Since 1994, over 7,800 students have received Boren Awards and contributed their vital skills to careers in support of the critical agency missions throughout the federal government. “To continue to play a leadership role in the world, it is vital that America’s future leaders have a deep understanding of the rest of the world,” says former U.S. Senator David Boren, the principal author of the legislation that created NSEP. “As we seek to lead through partnerships, understanding of other cultures and languages is absolutely essential.”

An independent not-for-profit founded in 1919, IIE is among the world’s largest and most experienced international education and exchange organizations. Undergraduate and graduate students interested in applying for the Boren Awards should contact IIE at boren@iie.org or visit borenawards.org.

The Boren Awards are administered at Mines through the Office of Nationally Competitive Scholarships. For more information about applying for the Boren Awards or other national and international scholarships, please contact ashley.weibel@mines.edu and visit: https://nationalscholarships.mines.edu/